This chapter is over. The image above is from the 8th Floor of the Virginia Hospital Center, looking east toward the Potomac. The silver building at the upper right is another part of the medical complex where the prelude occurred. This one is from almost Reston.

We knew what this one was going to be like. Medical issues were what drove the relocation back north from Refuge Farm. Access to the Wound and cardiology network, which involved sixty-mile round trips for routine appointments. With the routine labor required to manage the delightful little horse property, it became too hard.

This was the part of the long range plan that hadn’t been completely thought through. Coming back north from te Farm meant re-establishing the old basic network, some of which involved some issues requiring opening up the Arlington Network for care. With the realization that the docs would look at the leg and foot and insist on immediate care in more distant parts of the network. And the three or four weeks delay in actually getting and executing other routine appointments.

Which was the direct cause of this note. I am back in the unit in Big Pink after a trip to an appointment last week which resulted in immediate confinement in two of the lovely buildings in the Virginia Hospital system. I will not belabor you with the details, except to mention that required two minor surgical encounters. One involved a technical term called “amputation,” use of which even in a minor fashion can be a bit alarming. The second event was to clean up some of the debris that remained.

The Docs agreed to let the writing staff subject to both procedures to be discharged this afternoon. So, this is a “good news” chapter in the story. We are home and healing. Good news. The events elsewhere, Chinese, Russian and America jet interactions cannot be characterized exactly the same way, and we may be talking about that at some length in the days to come. We will be able to watch with interest and medical reporting over the coming weeks of summer.

It is strange how the strands of Public Policy in Health n Foreign Affairs are swirling around, oddly commingled. It will be interesting to watch them play out. In the background is a wave of news involving the passing of some great shipmates. The list includes some memorable folks. Marlow left the Writer’s Section. Sid Sommers went over the side of the Cold Warrior’s clique along with John Allison. They all merit discussion because of the significant roles they played in the great conflicts in which they served. We are doing another now in a sort of startling news byte that those conflicts ran up $32 Trillion Dollars on the National Debt. There is no indication of intent to pay it off, which suggests to the casual observers that there is another crisis looming that will involve the equivalent of six or seven full years of government spending and taxing all at once.

But we thought it might be worth noting this afternoon at one of these coincidental moments when one line of momentous events collides with another. Today is a good day for medical healing, and not so good in dozens of the others in the swirling chaos of social amazements. Looks like it will be an interesting summer, and at least we are no longer having to view it from inside a lovely view from the hospital!

Copyright 2023 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com